It Ain't Getting Prettier, Whittier

Back on December 4, Whittier Law Professor Sheldon Lyke wrote a post here on TFL which was sharply critical of Law School Transparency. In fact, he accused Law School Transparency of “instigating a dangerous national discourse” by suggesting that law schools were admitting students at very high risk of failing out of law school and/or failing the bar based on their poor LSAT scores and grades.  In his post, Professor Lyke claimed that the “LSAT is at best a weak predictor of first-time bar passage” and  “there is no evidence that law school graduates are not eventually passing the bar.”  Both of these claims are nonsensical. 

I wrote a response to this post on December 5. In the post, I challenged Professor Lyke to answer several questions related to the admission practices of Whittier Law School and other peer schools. 

Professor Lyke responded to my post with a long comment.  In his comment, Professor Lyke said that his initial post “was not an attempt to defend Whittier Law School’s admission policies” (although it sure read like one) because “Whittier Law School has done nothing wrong that needs defense.”  He said that he was “extremely excited to respond to these questions in a subsequent post next week.”

Seventeen days have passed and we are still waiting for Professor Lyke’s response.  In the meantime, the detailed July 2015 California Bar Examination results  have been released.  Based on the results, Professor Lyke may want to rethink his assertion that Whittier has no need to defend its admission practices.

Whittier’s first-time pass rate in July 2015 was 38% (46 of 122).  This was the lowest of the 21 (!) ABA-Accredited law schools in California, just edging out Golden Gate (48 of 122 for a 39% first-time pass rate).  In fact, Lincoln Law School of Sacramento, a California-accredited, non-ABA approved school had better results than Whittier. (23 of 53 for a 44% rate). Two other state accredited schools also surpassed Whittier’s results, albeit with very small groups of takers.  And Whittier’s summer 2015 results were no fluke.  In Feb 2015, their first time pass rate was 30% (3 of 10). In July 2014, it was 43% (70 of 164).

So, Dean Penelope Bryan, do you still contend that “[t]he LSAT score has no predictive value for the success of Whittier Law School students on the bar exam” as you told the LA Times?

But what about the eventual pass rate, you say?  Remember, according to Professor Lyke, “there is no evidence that law school graduates are not eventually passing the bar.”   Well, here is some evidence.  The pass rate for Whittier’s 84 repeat takers on the July 2015 exam was just 14% (12 of 84).

About the only positive thing one can say about Whittier’s performance is that they did better than InfiLaw. The combined first-time pass rate for the three for-profit InfiLaw Schools was 8% (2 of 24)  [Florida Coastal  (0 for 4); Charlotte School of Law (1 for 7); Phoenix School of Law (now Arizona Summit) (1 for 13) (note- this was actually an improvement for Arizona Summit, their students went 0 for 17 on the California Bar in 2014)]

In InfiLaw’s defense, they did not have the worst performance for first-time takers. The honor in this category goes to Syracuse Law School at 0% (0 for 13) with honorable mention to Suffolk (0 for 10) and Thomas Cooley (0 for 8).

For those keeping score at home, InfiLaw’s repeat-takers actually outperformed their first-time taker colleagues with a whopping 10% pass rate (4 of 41)  [Florida Coastal (2 of 11); Charlotte (1 for 6); Phoenix (1 for 24)].

For those who argue that schools like Whittier are providing opportunities for entry into the profession for underrepresented minorities, it should be noted that the first-time pass rate for black exam takers in this administration was 53.4% and for Hispanics, 61.3%.  For repeaters, the overall black pass rate at California ABA schools was 20.7% and for Hispanics 14.7% (compared to 71.8% for first time white takers and 28.9% for white repeaters).  Given that Whittier’s overall pass rate was 30% below the CA ABA average of 68% and their repeater pass rate was 10% below the overall CA ABA repeater pass rate of 24%, one shudders to think what the pass rate for Whittier’s minority students was.  I don't suppose  anyone at Whittier would care to share this information?

Before someone else points it out, let me acknowledge that Whittier had a few students (presumably from the top of the class) transfer to other schools and some of them undoubtedly passed the bar.  But far more Whittier students were lost to academic attrition than to transfer attrition.  Looking back at the Fall entering class of 2012, 227 students enrolled, according to the school’s 2012 ABA Standard 509 report.  When we review the 2013 report, we can see that from that class, there were 45 lost to academic attrition, 38 lost to “other” attrition and 29 who transferred out, while 3 transferred in.  If we deduct the 29 who transferred, that means that only about 46 of 198 students who started at Whittier in the Fall of 2012 and did not transfer graduated in the Spring of 2015 and took and passed the California bar on their first try.  (While a handful of Whittier students may have taken the bar outside California, the number is likely very small, perhaps 3 or 4. Whittier reports that in 2014, 181 of their graduates took the California bar and one each took the bar in Washington, New York, Pennsylvania and New Mexico.  In 2013, 194 took the California bar and 4 took another state bar.  In 2012, 155 took the California bar and 5 took another state bar.)  When these numbers are considered, the questions I posed in my last post to Professor Lyke about admitting students with a 25% chance of becoming a lawyer don’t seem all that far-fetched.  At Whittier in the fall of 2012, it wasn’t just the bottom quartile that had a 25% chance of graduating and passing the bar on their first try, it was the entire class. 

Unfortunately for Whittier's current students, the outlook is even more bleak.  Perhaps the most horrifying fact of all is that the fall entering classes of 2013 and 2014 had substantially weaker entrance credentials than their abominably-performing predecessors from the fall of 2012.

It is important to emphasize that I am not criticizing the quality of the legal education provided by Whittier.  My assumption is that the faculty are highly qualified, highly skilled and highly dedicated and that the overall educational program is on par with other ABA law schools.  But the fact is that even the best teachers cannot get students with extremely low aptitude for the study of law to pass the bar, especially a difficult bar like California's.  Thus, while I do not blame the faculty for the poor bar results, to the extent that the faculty acquiesced in the admissions policies that led to these completely predictable results, they do share responsibility for the consequences of those policies. 

The other group that deserves blame for this disaster is the ABA, whose laissez-faire attitude towards law school admissions policies has allowed schools to get away with lowering their admission standards to unconscionable levels without fear of repercussions.  There are signs that the ABA is finally starting to take their regulatory role seriously with regard to admissions.  Let's hope that these latest results spur them to take some serious actions.

 

Comments

[[M][@][c][K]]

"Brackets,

Do you make it your business to cyber-stalk anyone who posts as anon (which might not even be the same person you're thinking of/obsessing over) to recycle your ridiculous responses and faux-psychology?"

Anon think of it as an occupational hazard from being an "anon" who makes straw-men arguments that you will be confused with anon's who make straw men arguments while condemning straw men arguments.

At the risk of being called a name-ist, they not being an "anon," before you complain, since all anons look alike to me.

[Sy Ablelman]

Yo,

Brackets and Anon. You can't fight here, this is the war room!

[[M][a][c][K]]

Huh!

[Anon]

So it seems that we all agree that drawing conclusions from a small sample size is unfair. That means we all should agree that it was unfair for Frakt to attack the non-California schools in his original post. His response to my original comment merely doubled down on his criticism of Whitter without defending his criticism of the other schools. I don't know why, but his posts consistently stretch the facts, and he never acknowledges it when called out in the comments. It seems like he really has an axe to grind. . .

[twbb]

You're making no sense, Anon. The non-California schools he's criticized have the same bar failure issues in their own jurisdiction at suitably large sample sizes.

[eye of the beholder]

Oh Anon. Again, you're trolling, and getting people to reply. You haven't pointed to a single example of Mr Frakt 'stretching' any facts, because he hasn't. And you're not doing a very good job of 'calling him out', if that's what you're attempting to do. But then again, nobody really thinks you're making an effort.

[[M][@][c][K]]

Anon - which Anon are you? Let's try 10:49PM

So if we are to understand your posting, you think that the Bar Passage rates of Wittier are perfectly acceptable? That it just jim-dandy for Whittier students to be going into substantial debt to get a "JD" from this school? That its non-transfer attrition rate is just peachy?

Because so far that is what you are suggesting.

[Barry]

"In fact, he accused Law School Transparency of “instigating a dangerous national discourse” by suggesting that law schools were admitting students at very high risk of failing out of law school and/or failing the bar based on their poor LSAT scores and grades."

There are certain key features of such arguments - in this case, note that Professor Lyke didn't claim that the other side was incorrect in any way, but rather “instigating a dangerous national discourse”. And weaseling like that, he didn't even back his argument. After setting the bar on the ground, he still stumbled over it.

"In his post, Professor Lyke claimed that the “LSAT is at best a weak predictor of first-time bar passage” and “there is no evidence that law school graduates are not eventually passing the bar.” Both of these claims are nonsensical. "

"Remember, according to Professor Lyke, “there is no evidence that law school graduates are not eventually passing the bar.” Well, here is some evidence. The pass rate for Whittier’s 84 repeat takers on the July 2015 exam was just 14% (12 of 84)."

Both of his arguments are linked - when failing under the established metrics, claim without evidence that somehow they don't matter. Throw the burden of proof on others. Apparently we are supposed to be conducting a long-term study on Whittier grads, because that'd be far too hard for Whitterir to do it.

[Barry]

Knn: "I would say it is the sign of a poor school that takes people with good LSATs but cannot get them through the bar. I would say such a school is perhaps worse than a school that takes people with poor LSATs and cannot get them through the bar, as they had less to work with."

Well, the latter case is frankly, fraud - not in a criminal sense, but in the sense of 'if you or I did it, we'd be toast'. It's clear that law schools are regarded by the courts as 'untouchables' (those largely above the law, save for the most severe offenses which also attact publicity).

These schools are admitting large quantities of people whom they didn't admit before, and their results are in line with the reasons why - there are no improved methods or holistic standards which justify this. It's dropping standards to fill seats - or rather, cash student loan checks.

The second is also worth mocking - I looked up Brooklyn Law School's results on LST. Their LSAT quartiles are still above the median LSAT, which is surprising. However, their bar passage results s*ck. My personal opinion is that if you take people with above median test scores, and award them a degree, then the overwhelming majority should pass the basic licensing exam for that profession.